


it could be sweet

by cyclical (nextgreatadventure)



Category: Sanctuary (TV) RPF
Genre: F/M, hotwrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-12
Updated: 2011-12-12
Packaged: 2017-10-27 06:02:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/292410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nextgreatadventure/pseuds/cyclical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This must be relentlessly confusing for him sometimes because she’s his boss, friend, co-worker, partner in crime, and some other complicated things at any given time. But he manages to be the right things to her at the right times and she does the same for him and it usually works out just fine, even when things are convoluted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it could be sweet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [formallyintroduced](https://archiveofourown.org/users/formallyintroduced/gifts).



> aaaaahhh well fuck it's more tapping/dunne rpf. sentientmist gave me kind, shiny words so this is a gift for her. I really do need to stop this though probably. this can’t become a thing.
> 
> and in case it wasn't clear to anyone this is complete and utter ~~bullshit~~ fiction.

-

 

The first time they hang out (a term she is sure she’s outgrown by now) outside of work is at a dinner party at Damian’s place, and she’s not sure if that actually counts or not because even though they’re all friends, they are co-workers too, and so maybe in retrospect that dinner was, by definition, a work thing. It’s an interesting line to toe, because some days you’re the boss and other days you’re co-stars or you’re a director directing or being directed or a producer producing and then somehow the friendship, the camaraderie, just bleeds right through to the top. You’re friends and co-workers or co-workers and friends, and to decide which comes first is something she’s never really thought about before. But maybe it is an important distinction that needs to be made.

The time she and Damian and Martin spend together “outside of work” usually consists of kiddos running amuck through the kitchen while Kung Fu Panda plays in the living room and the adults sit around and drink wine and tell stories (or talk about work). It’s familiar. It’s comfortable and wonderful and there’s so much there that the three of them have shared over the years.

Robin doesn’t have kids. Robin isn’t married (anymore). He is a lot (a _lot_ ) younger and he’s such an actor, such a goofball, such a guy. She doesn’t really get why she clicks with him so much because the only thing they really have in common is the fact that when they get together they’re just totally in-synch for no apparent reason. That when they run scenes they’re both floored by the dynamic between them and when they poke and prod playfully at each other over meals and coffee on the weekends the chemistry is so natural and organic she thinks it can’t possibly be anything but healthy. She doesn’t really ‘hang out’ with Chris or RyRo or the rest of the cast or crew because usually everyone is busy and seeing them at work feels like enough to maintain a friendship (why this doesn’t hold true with Robin she isn’t sure).

The first time she ever finishes an entire pint of Guinness is with him at some run-down bar tucked into a far end of the city on a cold winter night and he’d thrown his jacket around her shoulders when they went outside so he could smoke. He smokes sometimes when he’s drunk, she’s found out. Something she added that night to her increasing list of Robin Dunne Knowledge (he cries every time he watches Field of Dreams, he lost his virginity when he was 17 to a girl who broke his heart, he likes to mix his ketchup and mustard together). It was a few months into the Webisode Venture (as they’d coined it) and it had felt like she had butterflies tickling her stomach for eleven months straight because everything was new and she wanted so badly to have it be successful. If they weren’t successful then maybe she’d never break the Stargate mold and maybe she’d just be That Actress That Played Sam Carter for the rest of her life and while that might be a blessing, she wanted to prove that she could do more.

So she’d been friends (co-workers) or co-workers (friends) with Robin for a while at that point, and the snow was falling softly and it covered the patio furniture; with heavy-lidded eyes she pretended to watch it instead of Robin as he lit up the end of a cigarette and sucked it between his lips. He represented a lot to her even at that point early on because they’d handpicked him to join this family. They trusted him to come along with them on this crazy ride and he was so happy, so energetic, so full of life. He believed in their work as much as they did and he felt, to her, like an old, old friend and a brand new one at the same time. Which he kind of was.

“You all right, darling?” he’d asked in that ridiculous British accent they always played with and she looked over into his face, saw that jackal grin, and her thoughts broke all up like a sugar cube in water. She felt her blood start to warm despite the chill in the air. It was a little different with him than the others over the years because she was his boss and the star of the show and a producer. She called the shots now, whereas before she’d sometimes had to fight tooth and nail professionally for what she believed in. She’d been worming her way into the boy’s club for a long time, and now years later she had this young skinny handsome guy who was quickly becoming one of her best friends and who would do anything and everything she told him to. He respected her right from the first handshake and ever since in every moment that passed between them he’d made her feel…kind of revered.

But she was also quite a bit older now and so maybe it just came with the territory. Maybe it was her age and her experience that had him looking at her like that, not necessarily… _her_. She had to remember that.

“Great,” she’d replied, and he leaned over to drape an arm across her shoulders. She slid hers around his waist and tiled her head to rest against his. Tried not to think about her daughter at home in bed while she was out drinking, tried not to let her professional balance tip.

It was silent for a few moments while the snowflakes stuck and melted against their jackets and hair. He’d sucked in the last of the smoke with his free hand and then flicked the thing to the ground.

“You look gorgeous when you blush,” he’d told her as he steered them back inside. With her free hand she’d swatted his chest in mock scandal but she didn’t move the other arm. She just pulled him a little closer and decided that maybe she could get used to this, after all. Decided maybe this was one relationship that might refuse to be defined for years to come.

 

 

She was right, because now it’s a few years later, a warm summer night and she’s at home by herself because Olivia and Alan have gone away to spend the weekend at Alan’s parents’ but she can’t go because they’re in the middle of shooting this TV show she’s in (that Little Show That Could). She hates that she can’t be there with them and she’s trying not to feel guilty because she knows she’s working too much but she needs to be. She _needs_ to work a lot because if she doesn’t she’ll go insane, because if she doesn’t then she’s worried everything will go up in a puff of smoke (maybe Robin’s right, maybe she’s more like Magnus than she realizes).

She’s not sure why she does it but she doesn’t really think about that until she’s already sent the text. And she’s pretty sure she should have called instead because texting is an ambiguous, impersonal activity for people who want booty calls but don’t want to admit it and she just…really wants some company. She wants _him_. She wants the way he understands their work and the way he understands her need to pour her heart and soul into it. She wants his easy smile and his energy and the way he makes her laugh differently than the others do. She wants his devotion and that indefinable spark and ease between them and she wants to let out this breath she’s been holding since she last saw him a day and a half ago.

She wants him because he is her friend (and co-worker) and because they are very close, and because maybe if she has another glass of wine and him here beside her she’ll actually reach out to touch his lips instead of just thinking about it (which should really be a disincentive but it’s…not).

The text says _come over, please_ and she gets a reply about forty five seconds later, on the dot. It’s just a question mark and she feels a brief pang of guilt because he’s told her already that even in person she’s hard to read. This must be relentlessly confusing for him sometimes because she’s his boss, friend, co-worker, partner in crime, and some other complicated things at any given time. But he manages to be the right things to her at the right times and she does the same for him and it usually works out just fine, even when things are convoluted.

She reaches for her phone and he picks up after the second ring.

“Come over,” she says, like she’s clarifying. “Come watch BBC sitcoms and drink wine and have popcorn with me.”

“Can we cuddle?” he asks after a pause, and she can tell he’s smiling but it’s a soft smile and maybe he’s just a little worried about her.

She laughs. Plays with the seaming on one of the couch pillows. “Sure, darling. Sure we can.”

“Let me pay my tab and I’ll catch a ride,” he says.

 

 

There’s an episode of Ab Fab on when he knocks and lets himself in the front door. He slides in beside her on the couch and takes a fistful of popcorn from the bowl on her lap.

“Liv and Alan aren’t around?” he asks, and she kind of wants to hug him for the casual concern in his voice. Sometimes he is playful, sometimes he toes the line, but he is never, ever disrespectful.

She sighs. “No daughter, no husband. They’re at Alan’s parents’.”

“You could have gotten the weekend off,” he says. “We could have tweaked things and pushed the shoot ‘til Monday.”

“And mess up everyone else’s schedules just so mine would be favored? Not cool. I’m away from them plenty. Too much, maybe. It’s fine. I can handle a bit of turnabout.”

She’s got some frustration in her voice and he knows it’s all directed at herself, and he also knows that she probably most definitely does not deserve it. He reaches for her hand.

“Wanna play a board game?” he asks, toying with her fingers. “I’ll kick your ass at Scrabble.”

This makes her laugh, which was the point. “That’s a bold statement, considering last week when Damian asked you to spell Damascus you just giggled and said ‘damn ass cuss’”.

He lets that one slide. “I’ve got some good weed at my place,” he offers, half-joking.

“I do too,” she says, poker-faced. “Let’s just sit for awhile. Tell me a story or something.”

When she rests her head against his shoulder he can smell whatever amazing vanilla-y shampoo she uses and it’s only a dash more distracting than it is every other day of his life that he sees her.

“All right. There was once a magical land far, far away, and in that magical land was a magical kingdom. And that magical kingdom was ruled by a princess called Amanda.”

“—wait. Why am I not the Queen?”

“Because this is my story. Princess Amanda was beautiful and gracious and had excellent posture. She ruled fairly and everyone under her rule was happy and well-fed and well-loved. Her kingdom was full of laughter and ice cream and ball gowns.”

She giggles and it’s infectious (when is it not). He starts to laugh, too. “Hey, I’m trying to tell a story, here.”

“Who would you be?” she asks. “Who would you be in my kingdom?”

“I thought I was Cinderfella,” he says. “I get to wear those ball gowns and come dancing at your palace until I meet Princess Charming and we ride away together to Atlanta on a white horse and carriage.”

“This is a screwed up fairytale,” she tells him solemnly.

“All the best ones are, love. All the best ones are.” He grins and readjusts a little and she takes the opportunity to swing around, to rest her head in his lap and wiggle her feet into the cushions at the far end of the couch.

He’s looking down into her face now and he brushes a bit of hair from her eyes, toys with the brunette strands a bit. “She looks exactly like you,” he says. “Even with the hair. She’s so completely yours, you know. Beautiful and clever and kind just like her mom.”

It’s an unexpected comment, a pretty intimate one, and Amanda has to back pedal for a few seconds to understand what he’s talking about. Robin does this every so often. It’s the sort of thing that keeps her loving him when he’s a real jackass.

She reaches up to touch his face, lets his unshaven cheek bristle against her fingers. Maybe it’s the comment and the way it made her heart swell (or the pang of guilt it sends) or maybe it’s the wine but she feels bold enough to let her thumb nail brush his bottom lip. He sucks in a breath and lets his eyelids flutter shut and she can see that bottom row of teeth that sometimes (she never consciously admits to herself) she wants to feel against her throat.

A second later she lets that hand drop over her eyes as she closes them.

“You’ve got really long eyelashes,” she remarks for no particular reason.

“Bad thing?” he asks, a little breathy. Not missing a beat.

“No,” she says slowly. “No. Quite the opposite. Although it’s a little frustrating.”

“Deign to tell me why?”

“Not really,” she says, moving the hand from her face to watch him.

“Now who’s being frustrating,” he mumbles.

“Shhh,” she says. She rolls her head and reaches out for the TV remotes, clicks the thing off. “Just sit here with me.”

They don’t really have many physical barriers, she thinks as the silence swallows them up. Very few boundaries. Sometimes she wonders if this is strange or bad but she’s always been a touchy person, it’s how she shows affection, and she has so much affection for Robin. She twists her fingers through his again, lets their hands rest against her chest and turns her face in toward his torso.

“Missed you today,” he tells her.

“Missed you, you goof.” She leans to press her forehead against him and sighs. She wants him badly inside this moment and she briefly runs through the possibilities in her mind and wonders if Robin would think differently of her if she slid her hand up his t-shirt right now, or if she’d hate herself for it later. She wonders how she’d deal with it being in her own home on a night when her family was gone.

She doesn’t want any of that. She doesn’t want to be irresponsible or a bad person and she doesn’t want to hurt herself or her family and she feels sick just thinking about it.

She just wants Robin (and she knows he wants her). That can’t be a terrible thing because it doesn’t feel terrible. It just feels like her hand warm in his and his breath against her face when he laughs at a joke he just made, the one she didn’t hear because she was too busy looking at his eyes.

But it is. It’s terrible. It’s horrible and it hurts, aches, right in the center of her chest. And she knows he struggles too because she’s seen the strain in his eyes when someone else touches her, when she touches someone else (the people she’s _supposed_ to be touching).

She closes her own eyes now, and breathes in. His thumb rubs little circles into her wrist.

 

Maybe she’s more tired than she realizes because the next time she opens her eyes it’s because Robin’s easing her off his lap so he can stand up.

Instinctively, she reaches back out for him but he hushes her and says “I’m just going to pee, I’ll be right back” and so she snuggles back into the cushions while he flicks the lamp off and pads off down the hallway.

When he comes back she’s sleepy and warm and he sits gingerly on the edge of the couch, touches the backs of his fingers to her forehead.

“You feeling okay?” he says softly, and instead of replying she tugs at his arm impatiently until he curls up against her, until his back is flush up and curved into her front.

“I’m fine, Robin,” she mumbles, tucking her arms into her chest. Resting her forehead against the back of his neck. “I like that you’re here.”

He wiggles a little to get comfy. “Good. ‘Cause we gotta be up for work in four hours and I ain’t going home just to turn right back around.”

She smiles and she can tell that her breath across his skin is giving him goose bumps and it makes her want to trail her fingertips across them to feel him shiver. But she doesn’t.

 

 

It’s probably an hour or so later when he shifts again, his feet and legs bumping around against hers at the end of the couch. She stretches a little and he’s so warm, and she’s still half-dreaming, so when her right arm snakes out around him and pulls him tighter into her she doesn’t even really register it.

It’s a slow and languid movement and she feels his hands curl in against her forearm and he just mutters her name like he’s still dreaming, too. It makes her awareness sharpen just a little.

Something about the hazy blankness of her mind in these first waking seconds and the stillness of the house and the soft, soft lavender light of pre-dawn peeking through the windows makes her feel like maybe this isn’t really happening. Like maybe when she grows bold and keeps her hand moving, roaming across his hip and stomach, it doesn’t really count because the rest of the world is still withdrawn.

Her eyes are still closed and so are his, and he’s making sleepy huffing noises and she just nuzzles his neck while her hand dips and her palm comes dangerously close to dragging itself against the zipper of his jeans.

He’s really waking up now because he’s turning his face, trying to look at her. She lets her hand stop but her fingers dig into his thigh and she’s, yeah. She’s awake now, too.

He leans up on his elbows a little and they lock eyes in the mostly-dark. He kisses her before he even really knows what he’s doing, shifting all at once to cup her face and all she can think about is that his lips are warm and insistent and a little sharp from stubble, and that he has no right to taste as incredible as he does this early in the morning.

She says his name against his lips and it sounds half-objecting but maybe he knows she doesn’t really mean it because he doesn’t stop kissing her. She opens her mouth and lets him slide his tongue across hers over and over again and something inside her belly is starting to grow warm and hot and it’s a feeling she knows very, very well. Something a little lower than that starts to sting and throb and that’s familiar, too. She starts to use her teeth and this whole thing between them, so carefully balanced before, is rapidly spinning out of control.

 

She ends up pushing him away but only long enough to stand up and drag him into their bedroom. She bypasses the bed, though, goes straight into the dark bathroom and she’s barely shut the door before he’s pressed her up against it.

“Wait,” she says. Lays a hand on his chest. Tries to steady her breath.

He watches her strip off her shirt in that pre-dawn sneaking through the skylight, watches her unbuckle her belt and slide off her jeans. He follows her lead, hastily removing clothing until he’s stark naked in front of her (admittedly, it’s not necessarily the first time).

For a few seconds she looks at him like she wants to eat him alive but and it might be the sexiest thing he’s ever seen, but then her lips twitch and she covers her face with her hand and just…laughs. The sound is so familiar and contagious (again), ringing in the silent bathroom, bouncing off the tile, and this is such a bizarre and incredible situation that he just laughs right along with her. He leans in and scatters kisses like seeds along her collarbone and throat and he can feel the laughter on her skin, warm and rosy. She feels as familiar as her laugh sounds but so entirely foreign, too, tempting and wrong (right) but she’s here in front of him and she’s not stopping him or pushing him away. He flicks the clasp on her bra and moves his hand across the new swath of skin while it drops down her arms to the floor. She lets him hook his thumbs into the waist of her underwear, lets him slip them down her long, long legs.

But when she crosses the room to turn on the shower her hands are shaking. He nudges her gently inside, closes the door while the hot water pours and pours over them and he steadies her hands.

She’s not laughing anymore. The lust and the need that were driving her actions up until this point have started to recede a little and she’s scared because she should have stopped, she should have _stopped_. She’s scared because she _still wants this_.

“What the hell are we doing,” she breathes.

“Do you want to stop?” he asks.

She bites her lip and the steam is making her feel a little dizzy. The water distracts her from the fact that they’re laying themselves bare and it keeps her from feeling too painfully vulnerable and raw and undone. It keeps her from focusing too hard, from unraveling.

“No,” she says finally. “No, just, please, keep touching me.”

She thinks she can hear the sound of his sigh above the sound of the running water. “I’d touch you forever if you’d let me. I’d never stop.”

“God,” she murmurs, and he’s pulled her closer, now, her mouth is right against his ear. His hands are fucking everywhere and everything is so, so wet and so, so sweet and really really wrong (right). “That’s really cheesy, Robin.”

He ignores that and pulls away, watches his own hand curve a bow-shape around her right breast. “You’re so goddamn sexy, Amanda, I don’t even know where to start with this.”

“I should have known you’d still turn into a complete geek when faced with a naked woman,” she says, but she’s relieved and glad he thinks so. She’s pleased but realistic about her body and sometimes she’s worried that she could never live up to all the things people say about her, all those ridiculously flattering things. She’s forty-six years old and she’s comfortable with that but there’s a certain vulnerability that comes along with the confidence. The fact that he doesn’t seem phased at all, that he’s cherishing her, that he’s still her Robin even in this moment, is a lot to handle.

She’s just feeling so many, many things right now.

She threads her fingers into his wet hair and he bends to run his lips and tongue back across the places his fingers had done. The noises she’s making are low and thready and he can hear her, feel her, close, closer than the hiss of the streaming shower and this still doesn’t feel real, not one bit. This is his boss, this is his best friend, this is the person he’s played opposite for nearly five years now. This is Amanda and she’s pulling his mouth to hers like she’s thinking all the same things, all the same surreal things that should not be overshadowing the fact that this never should have happened in the first place because he’s cooked her daughter grilled cheese sandwiches and talked about baseball over beers with her husband. Or maybe that’s exactly why everything else melts away into the background when his fingers sink in between her legs, and she rests her head back against the hot tile wall and gasps like she _means_ the pleasure she’s feeling.

He wants to draw it out so badly but he doesn’t know if he should (or could) so he just moves in slow, long s’s and up and down, up and down and she’s so wet, gripping him so tightly, that he just wants to make her feel like this always. After a little while she comes just as slow as his fingers move and it goes on so long that her world stops, that she looses her breath somewhere on his water-slick skin.

“Oh, fuck,” she says, sighing, when she finds it again. “Oh, god.”

When he smiles at her she finally opens her eyes and looks at him. Looks at him like he’d just done some sly, clever thing and she kisses him with her lips and teeth and tongue and fingers skimming the corners of his mouth.

She brings him off with one hand and he’s always known it wouldn’t even take much because it’s _her_ , but then she goes on and does this… _thing_ , this thing that he can’t even see but can definitely, _definitely_ feel and he’s never felt anything quite like that before but he wants to feel it every single day for the rest of forever. The pleasure hits him so suddenly, so sharply, that he thinks he actually whimpered into her ear (but he can tell by the way she lets him down easy with unhurried caresses that she still thinks he’s beautiful.)

They stand for a while under the hot water, hugging each other close and when it starts to run cold they dry off and help each other get dressed. She lets him watch her shimmy back into her jeans and he brushes the wet hair out of her eyes. He lets her button his shirt back up and she trails an index finger down along the line of buttons after they’re all done up.

 

They end up in the kitchen with cups of hot, strong coffee, yawning in the pale yellow morning light. They’ll drive her car to the studio in about an hour and nobody will ask questions because it’s Amanda and Robin and they’re joined at the hip. On the docket today is a few solo Magnus scenes and a few Will and Magnus scenes and one big ensemble that they’ve been looking forward to for awhile. It’ll be a good day, probably, if they can keep it together. Looking each other in the eye won’t be the problem. Laughing together won’t be the problem. It’ll be the acting like nothing happened part that’ll give it away.

“I won’t regret it,” she tells him, cupping her mug with both hands. They’re leaning against one another and against the kitchen counter ledge, staring out into the backyard. There’s a tire swing that Olivia and Damian and Martin’s kids play on almost every Saturday and she thinks she notices for the first time that the rope is blue.

“You might,” he says. “It was probably the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”

She looks at him. “Not the stupidest thing you’ve done?”

He laughs. She smiles. “No. This might be one of those Best Night Of My Life moments all the kids keep talking about.”

She wants to brush her fingers against his cheek but she doesn’t know if that’ll make this worse or not because they’ve always known this situation was completely different for both of them. So she just watches him with the sort of look on her face that she’s only allowed a handful of people to see before.

“You know I love you,” she says, and if anything that’ll _definitely_ make it worse but she doesn’t care. She will not let herself regret something done for love. A whole host of other feelings, yeah of course, but not regret. Not for this. Not for him. Life is too goddamn complicated and too goddamn short for that. She knows what it means and it means she loves him, wanted him, and he loves and wants (adoresworships) her too but this doesn’t mean anything changes. It’s this latter part that’s simultaneously so perfectly logical and the hardest to wrap your head around.

Robin knows the deal and that’s the reason this is easy, right now, having coffee with him in the bright morning light in her kitchen even after they’d just spent all of an hour and a half in the shower together. That’s why she’ll figure this all out and she’ll only hate herself in the more difficult moments. That’s why this thing is complicated but maybe it’ll be navigable because maybe it was bound to happen at some point. She prides herself on embracing all the possibilities she can in life and she’ll be the first one to tell anyone that everything is all about balance, and you can’t hide from the all bad or what you don't want any more than you can keep all the good or what you do want.

She’s picked this one up and she’ll hold it close just like all the other meaningful experiences she’s had and all the other things that have been planted in the middle of her path, because if that’s not what life is about then she’s not sure she wants to know the real plan. That’s why later when they’re in her car and a hand bustle-and-slap war breaks out over the radio dial they just laugh and Robin concedes, tells her she’s the boss just like he always does. That’s why they get through the workday just like any other and when they leave at the end of the late night he helps her put on her jacket even when she didn’t need help (like the annoyingly smug gentleman he is). That’s why his fingers only brush hers once and they both know they probably won’t talk tonight but they’ll greet each other tomorrow morning at the table read with soft smiles and maybe a few careful I missed yous.

 

-  
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End file.
